How to Spot an Antichrist | 1` John 2:18–27

Introduction: There was a scene I saw on a television show one time where a man was claiming to have a great juggling expert that he was going to do to music but he didn’t have the balls he used to juggle. Somebody had some but he declined to the offer to borrow theirs. Instead he did a routine where he just acted like he was juggling. The entire scene is just as ridiculous as you may imagine. You see juggling without the rings or whatever you may juggle isn’t actually juggling. It would be like playing baseball or basketball without the ball. The word ball is in the title. You can’t have baseball and basketball without the ball. But there are a lot of people who try to have Christianity without Christ. The maid idea of today’s text is that there can be no Christianity without Jesus and we must beware of those who say there can. We see this demonstrated through two main questions. Those two questions are, “Who opposes Christ,” and “What are we to do.” And as we do every Sunday, please join me in standing for the reading of God’s word.

Who Opposes Christ: 1 John 2:18-23

Expostion: John starts again by addressing the readers as children. While we know it is a term of endearment. It is also his way of segwaying into a new topic. He starts by telling them that it is the last hour. A lot of people have misunderstood this over the years and used it to try and say that it is evidence that Jesus isn’t actually going to come back because the disciples have been saying it was the last hour for 2,000 years. But what John means here is that we are in the final act of the show. God created the world, then man sinned and the world became broken and was waiting on God to send his savior. He sent the savior, and now he is back in heaven. We are now waiting on him to return and build his eternal kingdom here. The time between the ascension and the return, which we are in, is the final hour. John goes on to say, “and as you have heard, the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. The word Antichrist literally means against Christ or instead of Christ. The idea that a figure would rise up and oppose Christ and serve as a counterfeit savior was a common teaching by the apostles. We see Paul address it. John later speaks of the rise of the antichrist in the vision he received and described in the book of Revelation. So this was something his readers were familiar with. But he then says that there are already antichrists present. Because there are people opposing Christ, we know we are in the last hour.

Exposition: John goes on to say, “they went out from us but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with u. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” It seems that John isn’t saying the people were kicked out or excommunicated from the body of believers. But they left on their own freewill because it turns out they never actually believed what the other believers believed.

Application: One of the hardest lessons we have to learn as Christians is that we cannot live somebody’s life for them. There will people that show up to church for a season. Maybe they get really involved. Maybe they are at every event. But usually there are going to be signs that maybe they don’t truly believe. Maybe they say things that aren’t theologically correct. Something like, “As long as somebody is a good person they will go to heaven.” Maybe they act in a way that is not fitting for a Christian to act. But eventually they will probably leave. We cannot assume that everyone who comes to church is saved. We must continuously proclaim the gospel. We must be willing to ask hard questions of those who are here. And we must also hold firm to what we believe in.

Exposition: Verse 20 says, “But you have been anointed by the Holy One and you all have knowledge. “ This anointing John is talking about is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. When we become believers in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells within us. This is why our bodies are called the temple. The temple was where God’s presence dwelt in the Old Testament. Therefore, we are now temples because within us is where God dwells. This is why when you become a believer you have a conviction of sin you didn’t have before. This is the tug on your heart you feel sometimes. He also gives us knowledge that doesn’t come from ourselves, but straight from God. This knowledge is crucial for the reasons John begins to address starting in verse 21.

Exposition: John writes, “I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no life is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus us the Christ? This is the antiChrist he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.”

Explanation: The word Christ in Greek was the word that means messiah. The Jewish people had been waiting on their messiah that God promised through the OT prophets. To deny that Jesus is the Christ is to deny that he is the one sent by God to save our sins. John says that anyone who does this is a liar. Why? Because he is saying something that is utterly untrue. John says that anybody who rejects the Father and the Son are the antiChrists he referred to in verse 18. How does he say this, by saying that if one does not have the Father He does not have the Son, and anyone that denies the Son does not have the Father.

Application: Our first thought goes to other religions right? Well, this isn’t technically wrong. But being that John was addressing people in the church in verse 19, he probably isn’t talking about other religions. In fact, he is probably talking about people that were claiming to be Christian or had claimed this at some point. You may ask how common this actually is. Let me give you some examples. First, is Kirby Godsey. Godsey was the president at Mercer University in Macon before the current University President. Remember, Mercer claims to be a Baptist school and Godsey himself is active in a Baptist church in Macon. He wrote a book called, “When We Talk about God, let’s be honest.” Here are some quotes from this book.

““n the world of religious faith, we will have to learn that no one has the final answers. When you set forth our belief as the only right belief, we are wrong.”

“Jesus is not a god to be worshipped or the founder of a world religion to be admired.”

Godsey, a man who calls himself a Christian and is an active member of a Baptis, not a Southern Baptist like we are, but a Baptist Church, wrote a book saying that Jesus was not actually the messiah because he was not needed in order for a person to know God. According to John’s standard, Godsey is an antichrist. While he is an easy person to pick on because he is a public figure, there are others. What about people who say Jesus is a way to heaven. Well, they have rejected him as the messiah because they don’t believe that he is the only way to heaven. If he is not the only way to heaven he’s not the messiah. What if somebody says he may have only been a good person that lived. They believe in God, but not that Jesus is God? Christians believe in the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One God in three persons. It’s like a triangle. There’s three points to one triangle. Which point is the one triangle? They all are, that’s just what a triangle is. The same thing with God. If one rejects Jesus as being God our Savior, then they have also rejected the Father, and they are an antichrist.

Why is all this even important? It is important because believing Jesus is the Christ is what it means to be a Christian. And we cannot budge on this fact. It goes back to verse 19 when John speaks of how they have left the fellowship of believers. We should be welcoming to anyone that wants to come worship with us. But we cannot budge on what we know to be true. And if someone finds it controversial that we believe that faith in Jesus is the only way to heaven, and is willing to leave the church over this, then sadly we must let them leave and pray that God would open their hearts to the gospel. But if we sacrifice this belief in the name of political correctness or not offending someone, then we have surrendered the most sacred truth this world has ever known. This sounds dramatic, but it’s not because of what John says in verses 24 and 25.

Transition: John has given us a very clear warning here. Not only is there the Antichrist that will rise up in the end times. There are also antichrists living among us now. But what does that mean for us now? What are we to do? John gets into that.

What are we to do: 1 John 2:26-27

Exposition: John says, “Let what you have heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you have heard from the beginning abides in you, .....

John is telling us not to be led astray by all the noise. Don’t let all the people trying to give you an alternate version of the gospel lead you away from the belief of life in Christ Jesus? Why? Because of the promise of eternal life.

Application: Do you know that certainty of eternity doesn’t really exist in any other religion. There is a hope that maybe a person is good enough in a lot of regions, but no assurance. Even those that propose a many paths give a vague promise of what this means. But the promise we take hold of when we decide to give our lives to Jesus is eternal life. This eternal life isn’t just something that we look forward to. It certainly is a promise of an eternal future. But it is also the belief that Jesus changes our life now. It’s the belief that our life is given purpose and hope. That we live for something greater than ourselves and there is joy that comes with that.

Exposition John closes this section with verses 26 and 27. John says in verse 26 that he is writing to warn them of those that are trying to deceive them. There are a multitude of reasons people become false teachers. Some do it for profitable gain. They see there is an avenue to preach a gospel that is appealing and will allow them to have a following that will help them gain a lot of money. Some do it to excuse sin. I was talking with a college student on the Gordon State campus the other day. When I asked her why she did not believe in the truth of scripture, she said it was because she didn’t believe that some things the Bible said were sins were actually sins. What she didin’t realize is that we don’t get to decide what is and isn’t sin. There are some false teachers today who do this. They start by not wanting to condem sin and before long they have fallen into a false belief that there are many paths to God. They don’t want to submit to the one true God. There are other reasons we can go into, but whatever they are, we have to be aware that the gospel the preach is a false gospel.

Exposition. John says.... Once again is is referring to the Holy Spirit when he talks of the anointing. When John says that his readers need no teacher because the anointing teaches them, he is not saying that they are not in need of teachers like you see within the church. Teaching is a spiritual gift. What he is saying is that those who are in Christ Jesus do not need to be taught what is actually true about Christ.

Application: How many of you have ever heard, what the bible actually means is… Have you heard somebody say that when Jesus said he is the only way he actually meant for the Jewish people but not all people. John is saying here that those who are in Christ Jesus do not need to be taught a more sophisticated gospel that only certain so called experts understand. They do not need somebody to explain to them how the Bible actually is to be understood in today’s world. We have the Holy Spirit for that. And the Holy Spirit will tell us that Jesus Christ is Lord. And in those moments where somebody is trying to explain to you why Jesus is not the only way to heaven or trying to explain to you that you are close minded for believing that everybody has to believe the same way as you in order to go to heaven, trust the sound of the Holy Spirit saying to you that what that person is saying is not true because Jesus Chris is savior and Lord. And in those moments, even when you feel like your faith may be fading, run to the belief that brought you the joy of promised eternal life. Abide in God in those times and He will confirm to you the gospel you believe.

Conclusion: When I was a doing college ministry, we had an international student that was a part of BCM. At one point he came to me and told me his roommate was presenting all these arguments to Quan of why he should change his religion. Quan, being a relatively new believer didn’t know what to do. I looked at him and said, “If you were to change your belief, do you think it would bring you the same amount of joy as your relationship with Christ? For Quan, that was a message from the Holy Spirit. He knew it wouldn’t. This is because the message he received brought an anointing that helped him to know the truth.

Transition: Maybe tonight you realize that you have never truly believed in the gospel. Maybe you realize that you don’t have that security of abiding in something you know to be true in an ever changing world. Maybe you are ready to have the security of a life in Christ. Maybe you want to have the promise of eternal life. It doesn’t matter what you have done. It doesn’t matter how good or bad you think you are. The blood of Jesus made a way for all who believe in Him. Take hold of that promise tonight.